While hemp can be used for food, textiles, paper, fabric, and fuel oil, the misunderstood crop breeds fear amongst politicians in the United States and has led to the crop being illegal to grow without a DEA permit, which is pretty hard to get. But growing hemp is legal in Canada. Canadian company Motive Industries has taken advantage of this, and have been working on an electric car made of hemp plastic. Touted as Canada’s first bio composite electric car, the Motive Kestrel’s top speed is 135 km/h, with a range of 160 km. The ultralight car is a 3 door 4 passenger electric vehicle, and packs 16 kWh of lithium battery juice to keep the car going 160 kilometers per charge.

Now Motive has announced that bio composite materials derived from hemp and flax fibre will also be used in the car’s interior. They will be used to create the headliner, door panels, door trim, floor tub and center tunnel, instrument panel and the center console panel. The prototype should be coming out sometime this year, with a production goal of 2012.

The advantages of using bio composites over traditional materials include reducing dependence on fossil fuels, reducing waste, cost, and being able to produce the materials right in Canada. The materials are made from hemp mats produced by Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures (AITF), from hemp stock grown in Vegreville, Alberta. AITF is technically owned by the Government of Alberta. Considering the US government has a major fear of hemp, this could give Canada a leg up in the automotive industry.

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Henry Ford, famous for his interest in experimenting with hemp and soy-bean plastics would be thrilled to learn of the work Debbie Mielewski, at the Ford Research and Innovation Center in Dearborn, Mich., and her team of bio-engineers is conducting.

Mielewski’s Plastics Research Group is creating an earth-friendlier plastic and considering that the average car contains roughly 300 pounds of petroleum plastic, this is a good idea.

The Great Garbage Patch which was discovered in the Pacific Ocean last year, was a giant mass of plastic sludge about the size of Texas, revealed that we are at crisis-levels of environmental impact on our planet.

Ford Research and Innovation Center has been successful in other areas of creating recycling/environmentally friendly products for their vehicles.  Eight years of testing created the soy based foam that was capable of withstanding Ford’s durability tests and is now found in seat cushions and headrests of the 2010 Mustang.   This alone is preventing 5 million pounds of CO2 from being released into the earth’s atmosphere.

The Plastics Research lab has been experimenting with coconut and sugar cane for seat covers.  They have been able to create some very beautiful covers which were made entirely of corn, but they have yet to pass durability testing.  Other products they are working with at this time is rice hull and wheat straw, two by-products of harvesting what farmers throw out anyway.

“My dream is to have compostable plastics on vehicles. Instead of going to a landfill and sitting there for a thousand years,” says Mielewski. “In 60-90 days in a compost pile, the plastics will nourish the soil…and it can be used to grow plants.”

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